All of Existence is Dependent Upon Mind and Without Mind Nothing Exists

reply to post by AlienView


The mind is an extension of consciousness. Consciousness is life, it is light, it is the Spirit, it is the part of you that you cannot see. It gives rise to everything of your being, it gives rise to your mind, in fact I'd say that the mind and consciousness are the same thing.

reply to post by The GUT

Right. That makes sense. Aphorism thinks therefore he's not. Next.

Yet you could never produce something called a mind if you searched your whole life. Folk psychology at its finest. Too easy.

You, my friend, are an Idealist. Congratulations!

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.[2] Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.

Idealism

AlienView
All of Existence is Dependent Upon Mind and Without Mind Nothing Exists.

How can we show anything to exist without a mind defining it? Not energy, not matter, but mind is the fundamental principle of all of existence. Can you show an existent or even a non-existent state existing independently of mind?

"Je pense , donc je suis".

...Famous 'existential' motto.

"I think, therefore I am.

Aphorism
reply to post by AlienView

 

How can we show anything to exist without a mind defining it? Not energy, not matter, but mind is the fundamental principle of all of existence. Can you show an existent or even a non-existent state existing independently of mind?

In order for this to be true, one must first explain what mind is and how it exists, because to my eyes there is no such thing. Saying that everything is dependent on what amounts to nothing is illogical. Something is not fundamental if it doesn't exist.

So you 'see' that the mind does not exist. Do you see thoughts? Would you agree that thoughts seem to appear?
All appearing things appear to exist 'very briefly'.
Does any 'thing' have constant existence?
Can that which is constant be recognized?

reply to post by AlienView

Dear AlienView,

How can we show anything to exist without a mind defining it?

Help me out here, is this self-contradictory, or simply circular thought?

"What do you mean "we," kemo sabe?" The question being asked is "How can a creature with a mind show anything to exist if there isn't a creature with a mind defining it?" or "How can a person in the Universe know that there is a person in the Universe unless there is a person in the Universe knowing it? Let me go get a drink.

All of Existence is Dependent Upon Mind and Without Mind Nothing Exists.

Right. And this mind is not stored in a brain, obviously, or the brain would exist. There are no electrons flowing in neural pathways, because electrons don't exist. The only solution I can see to this is if you define "mind" to be equivalent to "God." In that case, welcome to the world of believers. I now certify you as an official Theist.

Can you show an existent or even a non-existent state existing independently of mind?

Yep, that's pretty much what a Theist would say, if he was defining "mind" as "God." OK, I understand. You're proving the existence of God, and fooling everyone into thinking you're talking about something else. Good work.

With respect,
Charles1952

Aphorism
reply to post by The GUT

 

Right. That makes sense. Aphorism thinks therefore he's not. Next.

Yet you could never produce something called a mind if you searched your whole life. Folk psychology at its finest. Too easy.

edit on 23-11-2013 by Aphorism because: (no reason given)

Searching for anything will not 'produce' anything.
When seeking one is not looking to produce - one is hoping to find.

AlienView
reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

 

The problem I have here is trying to define and understand consciousness. Many times I get into debates on the issue of whether AI [artificial intelligence, computers] can become conscious and often the naysayers who say it can not happen can not adequately define consciousness. What is conscious? How conscious? Conscious of what, of who?
You see I'm not sure what consciousness is - are you? 'Mind' on the other hand, which is also open to interpretation, can be viewed as a prime concept - we can not perceive, communicate, or inter-react without mind. And I can not understand how anything can exist without mind.

This is the way I see it:

Consciousness is the expression of each life form's unique Spirit.
Mind is the Engine of that Consciousness...the workings of the Spirit that allows it to think, sense, see, hear, smell/taste, feel, emote, speak and move.

No one mind thinks with the same consciousness as another.
Each life form has its unique conscious spirit.

No Body exists without the Mind.
No Mind exists without Consciousness.
No Consciousness exists without the Spirit.

I believe that Consciousness is the 'Interpreter' of the Spirit, and the Mind does all the dirty work!

arpgme
reply to post by AlienView

 

No. I agree with you completely.

In order to prove anything you must first exist. If it isn't EXPERIENCED (awareness/mind) then there is no way to study it.


By experience, I mean seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and our 6th sense of Feeling.


Before " I Know" I must first "Be".

I disagree with this.

What happens if you read about an experience. You are experience the reading.. but not the event that you are reading about. But do you deny by default that the event took place? Why read about it then.

So events occur without the mind to experience it. But for us to experience it, we require the mind.

Without the mind, the reality does not cease to exist, only our experience of it.

This is one concept I think has been hijacked by people who have no understanding of what it is trying to teach, and it has taken off on it's own.... erroneous is it's use..

Everything you experience is your reality. Everything you experience is perceived by you. Your perception makes it what it is. Good or bad, happy or unhappy, love or jealous. You have that perception. But regardless of how you perceive it, the reality of it still exists without judgement.

One thing can be observed by many, and many different perceptions of the same thing can be taken away from it.

An event may result in one man's good fortune and another man's misfortune. Yet the same event has taken place. Their mind's judgment defines their reality.

You see someone walking up the road towards you. She is your ex lover. Your friend next to you, greets her. She is his new lover. You both see the same person, yet both feel two opposite things.

One thing, many realities. And it exists whether you are there to witness it or not.

reply to post by winofiend

One thing, many realities. And it exists whether you are there to witness it or not.

The argument can be that no it is not 'One thing, many realities' but rather it is one reality and one mind exhibiting itself in various manifestations. But still when you talk about reality and/or consciousness you deal with concepts that are relative and open to interpretation - True you can say the same for 'mind'. I will admit that it may be arbitary for me to choose 'mind' as the first principle of all existence - and yet I still might ask someone to show an existent and simultaneously mindless state. Modern physicists often except the observer as part of the equation - an externally mindless universe may exist but with no mind there to observe it how would you know?

Aphorism
reply to post by The GUT

 

Right. That makes sense. Aphorism thinks therefore he's not. Next.

Yet you could never produce something called a mind if you searched your whole life. Folk psychology at its finest. Too easy.

edit on 23-11-2013 by Aphorism because: (no reason given)

Trying to produce mind as evidence would be like shining a flashlight in a dark room. Shining the flashlight on various things, and saying, "That's the source of this light." That which encompasses all cannot be encompassed. You can't fit the ocean in a cup so to say

AlienView
All of Existence is Dependent Upon Mind and Without Mind Nothing Exists.

Oh boy. Not again.

As a guy deeply involved in sciences I have many arguments which falsify this absurd theory. But I'm tired of just posting them over and over. Everyone just wants to believe what they see in New Age channels. I think this time I'll let them believe.

ojdidit


You, my friend, are an Idealist. Congratulations!

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.[2] Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.

Idealism

edit on 23-11-2013 by ojdidit because: (no reason given)

edit on 23-11-2013 by ojdidit because: (no reason given)

Those so called dualist theories wouldn't be there without mind. We created noises into letters into words into theories. Without any of that, their is no duality. Without the 5 senses, whom would experience duality? Without the senses, their wouldn't be anything besides self and the experience of I AM. Almost like deep dreamless sleep

reply to post by winofiend


Well said mate.

swanne

AlienView
All of Existence is Dependent Upon Mind and Without Mind Nothing Exists.

Oh boy. Not again.

As a guy deeply involved in sciences I have many arguments which falsify this absurd theory. But I'm tired of just posting them over and over. Everyone just wants to believe what they see in New Age channels. I think this time I'll let them believe.

edit on 23-11-2013 by swanne because: (no reason given)

Without your mind, what would your experience be? Would their even be a "your"? I think you're dismissing the notion just because of your bias on the word "new age" and anything to do with it. You're not allowing your self to delve into the concept of no concept. Perhaps you're afraid, it is quite frightening at first. It is the true death. To be honest, theirs nothing new about it.

winofiend

arpgme
reply to post by AlienView

 

No. I agree with you completely.

In order to prove anything you must first exist. If it isn't EXPERIENCED (awareness/mind) then there is no way to study it.


By experience, I mean seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and our 6th sense of Feeling.


Before " I Know" I must first "Be".

I disagree with this.

What happens if you read about an experience. You are experience the reading.. but not the event that you are reading about. But do you deny by default that the event took place? Why read about it then.

So events occur without the mind to experience it. But for us to experience it, we require the mind.

Without the mind, the reality does not cease to exist, only our experience of it.

This is one concept I think has been hijacked by people who have no understanding of what it is trying to teach, and it has taken off on it's own.... erroneous is it's use..

Everything you experience is your reality. Everything you experience is perceived by you. Your perception makes it what it is. Good or bad, happy or unhappy, love or jealous. You have that perception. But regardless of how you perceive it, the reality of it still exists without judgement.

One thing can be observed by many, and many different perceptions of the same thing can be taken away from it.

An event may result in one man's good fortune and another man's misfortune. Yet the same event has taken place. Their mind's judgment defines their reality.

You see someone walking up the road towards you. She is your ex lover. Your friend next to you, greets her. She is his new lover. You both see the same person, yet both feel two opposite things.

One thing, many realities. And it exists whether you are there to witness it or not.

You're skipping a step. Take away my mind, your mind, and all others. Then what experience or duality is their? Just silence but silence doesn't describe it, nothing can. More like infinity. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? No, because their is no differentiation between the tree and its surroundings. No differentiation between the noise and background noise, just one wave of existence. If you walked to the tree the next day, and saw it on the ground you will imagine the the sound it made when falling. That imagined sound and the so called real sound are no different. Both received by the mind but generated from different places. If you're in a dream and you don't know it's a dream, it's reality. If in that dream you realize it's a dream, you then become god subject and object. Able to create at will. That is who you are

AlienView
reply to post by iamea

 

Yes but 'what if'' is a mental construct, a state of mind - I can not comprehend any state of existence without mind defining it - Mind must exist first - was there ever an existent state without mind? = that woud be impossible and illogical.

Consciousness can exist without the mind present, really, I woke up from a dream one night, looked at my hands and got the shock of my life, as i said to myself "WTF ARE THEY"

it was a very strange concept I must admit, but I was certainly here and my mind wasnt lol.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


I share what you say here. Therefore. Please allow me to add some more thoughts about consciousness. The way i see it.

Some people best describes non-consciousness as something that happens when we are given anesthetics during operation. The operating system in the brain and the ‘Self’ (The processor) is then still working, but the software that deals with consciousness ‘The me’ are forced offline. The ‘Me’ is the software that has the responsibility to collect data from the physical world around us and thus also controls all our senses .

It is the never ending and constant process of receiving data through our senses from the outer physical world that causes consciousness to be born. Whatever data the ‘Me’ receives from our senses , the ‘Me’ views them, hears them and senses them in a never ending and continuous stream of data. Think of the consciousness as some kind of Cam- recorder that never stops recording. It receives the majority of it’s input data through the eyes, and just some minor amount of data through the other senses. Whatever it record , it becomes viewed instantly by the ‘Me’ and thus the data becomes conscious data and they are immediately passed on to the ‘Self’ who gets busy analyzing them. The consciousness thus operates as if we both record and see a movie simultaneously.

We are constantly recording the now, which is the only timeframe we are able to record, but just as is feels like when we see a movie, the consciousness some sort of give us an illusion of overlapping the different time frames. It thus feels like we still are in touch with the last second from the past and the upcoming second from the future that comes next, when we eventually view it all.

Everything that the ‘Me’ records are stored in the short time memory. When we eventually sleep, all databases goes offline , and the communication between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Me’ are stopped. When this is done, maintenance routines starts running and sorting out the data that are collected in the short time memory. Some data gets moved to long term memory or existing and related data gets updated, while much data is deleted. In the end, the short time memory is cleared. When these routines runs, parts of the data or fragments of the data that are processed are displayed by the consciousness-viewer as dreams. This is probably a process that takes place in order to make sleep more enjoyable.

Once the ‘Me’ has received data through the senses it passes them on to the self , who analyzes them. The ‘Self’ can best be compared as the CPU (or processor) in a computer, but the CPU in our brain has also the ability to discuss everything it does with the ‘Me’. This inner dialog happens all the time and even though it is the ‘Me’ who eventually controls the ‘Self’ , most people will find out that the ‘Self’ is hard to control. If the ‘Self’ is not occupied with taught processes forced upon it by the ‘Me’ , the ‘Self’ seems to care less about the data from the now and care more about data from the past or from the future. But this is however another discussion. The inner dialog that takes place between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Me’ is called Self-awareness.

There is aslo a delay in the time from the data is collected by the ‘Me’ until it is presented to the ‘Self’ for processing. This time is called the response time. Suppose you accidently placed your hand on a hot stove. It would take some milliseconds for the brain to receive the data about this incident and analyze it, and another milliseconds to make your hand move, and yet some more milliseconds for your brain to create pain and for you to cry out. If you ever have experienced this, you would have noticed that you were practically unconscious of the physical world around you while it happened. The reason for this is that it was the operating systems that took over all control. This happens when the brain senses danger. The operating system is the primary code in the brain that operates all the things in our body that is essential for surviving. The operating system’s own programs have the highest priority in the brain , and thus they will always take control and get executed before any other programs.

The well being and fine tuning of our body and brain determines the overall quality of our consciousness. The consciousness differs very much in how effective it is. Thus the data it receives will differ in quality from day to day, depending on the level of consciousness. There are a lot of things that determines the level of consciousness. The greater the consciousness is, the greater is the quality of the data the brain receives, and the greater is the speed of the ‘Self’ that analyzes the data. It is like viewing a movie in low resolution versus high resolution. If the brain receives low quality data, the ‘Self’ will compute accordingly and the results will be poor.

iamea

AlienView
reply to post by iamea

 

Yes but 'what if'' is a mental construct, a state of mind - I can not comprehend any state of existence without mind defining it - Mind must exist first - was there ever an existent state without mind? = that woud be impossible and illogical.

Consciousness can exist without the mind present, really, I woke up from a dream one night, looked at my hands and got the shock of my life, as i said to myself "WTF ARE THEY"

You said to yourself??
How many are you? You said to who? Who is speaking to who?

The mind is what speaks so 'WTF ARE THEY' was what could be referred to as the speaking mind. Look to where those words appear from and what heard them. 'WTF ARE THEY' was an appearance - to what do the words appear to?

When you did not know what was being seen it was just an appearance - it was nothing knowable - yet the mind wanted to put a name on what was being seen. There always appears to be something but that something is nothing until the mind draws lines and boundaries. The primordial soup is always present and the mind makes things out of it.
Apparent existence is a Rorschach inkblot.

reply to post by AlienView


I suppose you're aware that the debate over the nature of reality and its relation to mind has been going on since the beginning of philosophy. Currently, majority opinion among philosophers and scientists is against you, but that may change. Not that it matters in the slightest, one way or the other, what anyone thinks about the subject.